In August, 1535, Jacques
Cartier sailed up the St. Lawrence and cast anchor at the Indian village
of Stadacona. In 1608, Champlain, folIowing in the wake of Cartier,
landed at Stadacona with men and materials to lay the foundations of
Quebec city. Around this centre grew up a small community, destined to
spread its influence until a prosperous colony was built up on the banks
of the lower St. Lawrence.

Fur-traders and adventurers
penetrated far inland setting up trading-posts by lake and river. French
missionaries lived and laboured amongst the Indians, winning converts by
their devoted service. Explorers mapped out the courses of streams and
noted the natural resources of the country. Military leaders built forts
at strategic points. But for years, scarcely anyone seems to have
thought seriously of making a living by the cultivation of the soil.
Governor after governor complained to the home authorities that in
contrast with the English settlers in the New England colonies, who
began at once to follow agriculture, the French settlers preferred to
engage in the adventurous and more lucrative occupation of trading in
furs.

But with the passing of Canada to the English in
1763 and the subsequent revolt of the American colonies, all this was
changed. Many colonists who had remained true to England had either been
ruined during the revolt or subsequently found their old surroundings
uncongenial and looked to Canada as a place of escape. The home
government promised assistance, and thousands responded to the
invitation to settle in Canada.

In the matter of
location, the new-comers seem to have been allowed a wide range of
choice. Lands, in what are now designated the Maritime Provinces,
Quebec, and Ontario, were offered for settlement. Coming from New York
and other agricultural states, many of the immigrants chose Ontario,
settling for the most part within easy distance of the Great Lakes
waterway.

With their coming, the pioneer period of
agriculture in Ontario may be said to have begun. Nearly all of those
who came at first were of humble origin, of honest purpose, and almost
destitute of means. For two or three years, owing to crop failures and
lack of equipment, they received some aid from the Government. A
considerable proportion of these first settlers were Loyalists, and
mingling with them were discharged soldiers, many of them Hessians, who
took up land in preference to returning to Europe.

In
addition to the Loyalists and subsequent American immigrants there were
thousands who came direct from the Old World to settle in Canada. Those
of American origin arrived mainly between 1780 and 1812, while the
principal movement from overseas commenced a few years later. The
first-comers from what is now the United States followed three main
routes, one along the line of the St. Lawrence from Lower Canada,
another from Oswego in New York State to Kingston and the Bay of Quinte,
and still another by way of the Niagara frontier. Those arriving at
Niagara divided into three sections on reaching the border. One section
moved westward to lay the foundations of Haldimand and Waterloo
counties; the second, passing around the head of Lake Ontario, settled
in Markham, Scarboro, and adjoining townships; while the third followed
the shores of the lake farther eastward for some fifty miles to a point
where they almost joined with those coming up the St. Lawrence.

The later, and greater wave of pioneer immigration, originating from
beyond the Atlantic, on arriving in Canada followed a route inland lying
along the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa rivers by way of Bytown, as Ottawa
was then called. From there the immigrants spread all over Eastern
Ontario.

It is with these
strangers in a new land, coming from widely separated sources, that we
are concerned in these pages. Let, us hear their story as they or their
immediate descendants told it a quarter of a century ago.

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